Scenes
by Valieara
Summary: The darker aspects of Defying Gravity. There she had been, Elphaba thrust by her own will violently into the harsh orange light from the setting sun, green skin terribly illuminated, luminous. It was awful. It was beautiful.


At the time, the whole thing had seemed like a horribly jumbled mess of wishes and wants and desires, and tangents on these sorts of themes: the consequences that would follow, the fear it would inspire in them both. It was something that at least_ she_ was sensible enough to realize, for once, of the two of them, out of their not-so-dormant places in the darkness of the back of the room, or their minds. She couldn't quite decide. One of the two.

Et cetera, et cetera. These tangents all seem to have the same sort of gist, as she'll tell you tiredly – if you haven't already figured it out for yourself. She'll likely assume you have, and retreat into the vagueness of an all-too specific closeness that lurks behind her light eyes in colorful details that to you, seem faded and blasé.

A vision of some still-hazy future triumph, despite it all. Despite it all, a foreboding beginning, middle, and end. Despite what, she didn't know, she'd never known. Asked her then and she'd have told you she was along for the shopping and a break from university; now, she'll either ignore you, the questioner, or deny that she'd ever taken the trip _or_ a part in such a scene.

Scene, scene, you make this sound like some sort of play, she'd tell you irritably if you continue to press the issue. There are several _scenes_ involved, but only one for which she can be held guilty of treason, and it is for this reason, as well as unspecified and dangling others that you cannot possibly know of, that she holds off on this train of thought, avoiding this particular worn and treaded path of neurons that has become her own sentimental memory lane.

For treason comes in more than one form, these days; and as treason against oneself is not an option, or so she tells herself, by neither denying her nor supporting her, she supposes she doesn't commit it. It's good enough for the times.

For at the time, the whole thing had seemed an impossibly plausible fancy, born of something she wasn't quite sure of. There she had been, shrunk in the corner, concealed half in shadow, half in light; Elphaba thrust by her own will violently into the harsh orange light from the setting sun, green skin terribly illuminated, luminous. It was awful. It was beautiful. It had been, perhaps, the first time she had looked on her with real fear.

Mutters and mutterings, insane and deluded, on life, on liberation, on love rasped in nearly disembodied echoes harsh and soft around the small room. No philosopher herself, she had stood back, small and girlish and timid, knowing only basely that these were not Elphaba's usual philosophical ramblings.

_If that's love, it comes at much too high a cost. I'd sooner buy defying gravity._

Scenes, scenes, she thinks to herself angrily now; yes, all the makings of the perfect drama: dysfunction, depression, and revolution, personified and generalized, perversely and conversely. Scenes of a caricature; scenes of a life.

She'd stood then to the side, shocked into speechlessness. She got the idea that she was seeing her friend for the first time as she was meant to be: fierce and terrible, disturbances lurking beneath the surface of the sardonic pleasantries she suppressed around those she had convinced herself to come to care for.

It did not do much to ease her mind. Coming out, bolder now, reaching out a gentle arm, invisible in the face of blind, wild dark eyes and a mantra: _You can't bring me down. _Like a phoenix from the ashes, she'd risen out of the crumpled heap of tears and skirts and utter collapse clutching a book of hope to her in a throne room, into this creature: wounded, and wielding a broomstick.

The idea of love as a material thing, unaffordable and unattained; that freedom from love should be an ideal; that this girl would sooner throw out the laws of physics than believe that someone might love her. It had set her very much on edge.

Depression; dysfunction. Seconds later in a rush of some chemical or other (her science courses were so very long ago, after all), she begged her to come with her. _Just you and I._

She'd felt it too, that euphoria, that adrenaline, those endorphins from that ridiculous run, an overwhelming affection and love for her friend maybe enhanced by a combination of any of these things, or, simply the foreboding charge of the room and the emotion of the moment. It was only much later that she'd realized the sharp turn in Elphaba's thought, the contrast of one minute and the next.

She was bored to death of her life, of herself. She longed for the twists and illogic, now; the softer affection underscoring it all. Clouds drift, light drifts, in waves and particles, in logic and uncertainty.

It is a paradox. She drifts.

Some faded strain echoes in her mind: _I hope you're happy_, she thinks, to herself, not knowing who she means by these indefinite pronouns in this indefinite setting. Somewhere, whether in the back of her mind or the vastness of the world, there is a woman equally as faded.

But specific words and definite pronouns mean long walks down the long-dark pathways of her mind. Therefore, she stays away. The halls remain dark; her eyes grow emptier. You look on curiously; she ignores you.

_Scene, scene_, she thinks driftingly at the window._ This grows more like a farce. _


End file.
